Pay me to watch your ads
August 2nd, 2008 by DavezillaGood news! Gen Y kids will watch your mobile ads. There’s a catch: you have to pay them to do so.
“The Harris Interactive research indicates that mobile advertising, especially via mobile phones, can gain a foothold … if it is unobtrusive, targeted toward an individual’s personal tastes and offers something unique. Among teens surveyed, over half (56 percent) said they would be interested in viewing mobile ads with incentives, while over one-third (37 percent) of adults noted that they would be receptive to such advertising…
Harris Interactive asked survey respondents to identify the best mobile advertising incentives. Cash is king, with 80 percent of adults and 70 percent of teens identifying it as the top incentive for responding to mobile advertising. Entertainment downloads (61 percent), free music (57 percent) and complimentary minutes (53 percent) also are popular incentives among teens. Among adults, free minutes (49 percent) and discount coupons (37 percent) are appealing incentives. Free entertainment (31 percent) and music (24 percent) downloads also captured the attention of adults.”
SOURCE: Harris Interactive study [links to a PDF]
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Incentives definetely work with mobile ads according to the above study and our own testing showed postive results as well with free minutes worldwide. Now we can do free minutes and special offers though SMS.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:15 am
A good example of the incentive program is blyk. They have already met their subscriber goal for the first year in a blink.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Thanks for the insight, Mike! That’s good to hear.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I think the free stuff would work great. Ringtones, songs, minutes..They’d be willing to receive your content but they might totally switch themselves off to being involved in it…
So it would work, as long as its not “ad-ish”
August 15th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Free is nothing new. Free, over the air TV and Free, over the air radio both provide avenues to “Free content” in exchange for presumably watching or listening to an ad. Isn’t this the same business model? What’s different is what’s bartered.
Would you rather have a free ring tone or X cents off your phone bill? If you could sign up for a cell phone provider for free would you put up with ads? To me its fascinating that so many people pay $100+ per month for cable TV. With digital TV much of the reception problems of an antenna are gone. So what keeps them with cable TV? Ad supported content like ESPN, Discovery, Nat Geo?